Chapter 136: If Everyone Says Something Is Wrong, Then Something Is Definitely Wrong
Stelle ruthlessly ignored Akimichi Torifu's dramatic, tearful wailing, dragging Nara Kajisuke by the collar straight into the Hokage's office to act as her personal document processor. Even after stuffing the room with a small army of clerical staff, the towering mountains of paperwork simply refused to shrink.
"Kagami," Stelle muttered, her knuckles cracking with a sharp, menacing pop. "Come over here and let me beat you up. Better yet, how about I just toss this Hokage hat onto your head and call it a day?"
Uchiha Kagami blinked, a fleeting trace of the gullible, naive boy from his youth surfacing on his usually composed features. "Calm down, Stelle. You know perfectly well that Hiruzen and Danzo would never agree to such a thing."
"Fine. Then we swap for a month. I take your desk, you take my throne." Stelle didn't wait for an answer. She marched straight down the hall to Kagami's corner office and shoved the door open.
She froze. The room was a literal war zone of bureaucracy. Stacks of scrolls touched the ceiling, while over a dozen frantic clerks scrambled to filter and classify the endless stream of intelligence reports. In the corner, one unfortunate Uchiha clan member was processing data so frantically that the two tomoe in his crimson Sharingan were spinning like buzzsaws. If the poor guy stayed under this level of stress for another hour, he was going to awaken his three-tomoe Sharingan purely out of sheer, agonizing administrative torment.
Stelle swallowed hard. 'Did I... maybe dump a little too much of my workload onto him?'
"Sorry for the intrusion!" she yelped, slamming the door shut with a resounding bang. A look of genuine, lingering terror painted her features.
As it turned out, even the shameless, utterly fearless Stelle had a mortal enemy: middle management.
A subtle, knowing smile crinkled the corners of Kagami's eyes. "How about I treat you to dinner later?" he offered smoothly. "We can share a couple of drinks to take the edge off, and then come right back to finish the night shift."
"Drinks?" Stelle instantly took three steps back, waving her hands in frantic refusal. "No. Absolutely not."
Free food was always welcome, but alcohol was a hard line she refused to cross. Her immortal body was her ultimate trump card. If she actually managed to get blackout drunk, who knew what would happen? What if that shadowy backstabber, Black Zetsu, decided to take advantage of her stupor and casually plunge a kunai through her heart a few times? She would wake up without a scratch, her biggest secret exposed to the entire village in the most humiliating way possible. No, she couldn't risk it.
The dust from the recent invasion had finally settled. In the aftermath, Konoha had successfully seized absolute, undisputed control over the Land of Fire's political regime. On the surface, the crisis had passed smoothly, fading into the annals of history.
But for some, the invisible scars left behind would not fade so easily. Jiraiya was one of them.
Warm, golden sunlight spilled through the hospital window, casting a gentle glow across the stark white sheets. Jiraiya's eyelids fluttered, and he slowly woke from his coma. He had just experienced a wonderfully happy dream.
In that fleeting illusion, time had rewound to a simpler era. He hadn't harbored a shred of distrust toward Kinoe. Instead, he had placed the young Wood Release user on the exact same pedestal as Tsunade and Orochimaru.
During that fateful mission, he had acted with the maturity of a true veteran. He handled every variable flawlessly, never once falling for an enemy Jonin's cheap Transformation Technique. Kinoe had returned to Konoha alongside them, completely unharmed. They had forged an unbreakable bond, becoming true comrades who could comfortably trust each other with their lives, always watching each other's backs.
They took on countless assignments together, growing stronger side by side. In the dream, Kinoe had shed his emotionless shell, becoming just like any other shinobi in the village, capable of laughing, joking, and living freely. Though they faced harrowing dangers out in the field, they always returned home safe and sound.
Eventually, the time came for Kinoe to return to his own world. But Orochimaru, brilliant as ever, had invented a device capable of traversing time and space. The three of them had crossed the dimensional rift together, tracked down the alternate reality's Advisor Danzo and Teacher Hiruzen, and mercilessly beat them to a pulp, ensuring Kinoe's permanent escape from the clutches of Root. It was a flawless, fairy-tale ending.
Unfortunately, reality possessed a cruel habit of shattering beautiful illusions.
The moment his eyes fully opened, the crushing weight of the truth settled over him. Fragmented memories from right before he lost consciousness bubbled to the surface of his mind. He remembered the blood. He remembered Kinoe, broken and dying.
He had been left with no other options. The Hokage had granted him one final audience with the boy. And then, without warning, Kinoe had launched a lethal strike aimed directly at the Hokage. Jiraiya had thrown himself into the path of the blade.
It wasn't an illusion. Kinoe had truly, mercilessly tried to assassinate the village's leader.
Jiraiya shot up from the mattress, his breath hitching. He yanked his hospital gown open, staring down at his chest. The fatal wound had already scabbed over, the newly formed tissue knitting together perfectly.
He took a deep breath. His mind felt shockingly clear. There was none of the lingering, throbbing migraine that usually followed a high-level Genjutsu. Instead, he felt invigorated, as if he had merely taken a long, restful nap.
Aside from a faint lethargy caused by massive blood loss, his body felt entirely fine.
"Am I... actually still alive?" he whispered to the empty room.
He raised his hands, staring at his pale palms as they trembled slightly in the morning light. A deep sense of disorientation washed over him.
Everything had spiraled out of control far too quickly. One second, the situation was stable; the next, it had plummeted into an irreversible nightmare. The sheer whiplash of events had left him completely blind-sided.
His brow furrowed. If he were the only one who felt that something was fundamentally wrong with this entire sequence of events, he could easily write it off as his own personal bias. A coping mechanism born from his overwhelming guilt regarding Kinoe.
But Orochimaru had noticed it too. The snake-like genius rarely let emotion cloud his judgment. If Orochimaru felt the pieces didn't fit, then there was absolutely a conspiracy lurking beneath the surface. 'Why were we forbidden from investigating further?'
Gritting his teeth, Jiraiya swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He looked toward the masked Anbu guard stationed by the door. "Could I trouble you to escort me to the Hokage? My legs aren't quite ready to make the trip on their own."
The Anbu operative hesitated for a fraction of a second before nodding, stepping forward to support Jiraiya's weight as they made their way toward the Hokage Building.
The meeting behind closed doors lasted for quite some time. When Jiraiya finally pushed the heavy oak doors open and stepped back out into the corridor, he found Tsunade and Orochimaru already waiting for him.
Tsunade was leaning casually against the wooden railing of the corridor, bathed in the warm afternoon sun. She was idly flipping through a medical text, her eyelids drooping with exhaustion.
Across from her, Orochimaru leaned against the plaster wall, his pale fingers absentmindedly fiddling with a delicate, butterfly-shaped hairclip. His golden eyes were distant, entirely lost in thought.
At the heavy creak of the door, both of their heads snapped up.
Given that he had just clawed his way back from the brink of death, Jiraiya's complexion was understandably ashen. Yet, his overall demeanor was a stark contrast to what his teammates had anticipated. They searched his face for any sign of broken spirit, any hint of the crushing depression they expected to find. There was none.
The devastating betrayal by Kinoe hadn't shattered him.
Instead, Jiraiya's dark eyes burned with a fierce, unyielding light. He radiated a quiet, intense fighting spirit, as if he had just locked onto a brand-new purpose. His gaze was anchored by an ironclad determination.
Seeing him stand so tall, both Tsunade and Orochimaru let out a synchronized, silent breath of relief.
Perhaps they had been worrying over nothing. Time and tragedy had quietly forged the once loud, carefree boy into a remarkably reliable shinobi. In that moment, he looked so deeply rooted that a hurricane couldn't knock him off his feet.
Tsunade pushed off the railing, closing the distance between them. She pulled her fist back and struck him squarely on the shoulder. The impact was feather-light, barely carrying the force of a gentle tap.
"Don't just go sprinting off the second you wake up, idiot," she scolded, though her voice lacked its usual bite. "At least have the decency to tell your attending physician where you're going. Do you have any idea how much you worried us?"
She had spent the entire morning hovering over his bedside, only stepping away for a few minutes to check on the other critical wards. Coming back to find an empty bed had nearly given her a heart attack.
Jiraiya rubbed the back of his neck, flashing her a sheepish, apologetic grin. "Sorry, Tsunade. I just needed to speak with the Hokage immediately, so I had the Anbu drag me over here. I completely forgot to leave a note."
Orochimaru didn't move to embrace him, but his raspy voice carried a distinct edge of resentment.
"You certainly enjoyed a peaceful slumber, Jiraiya, while the rest of us were being worked to the bone. Those invaders used widespread Lightning Release to completely fry Konoha's entire electrical grid. We've spent days doing manual repairs, and the moment we finished, they dumped a mountain of administrative fallout onto our laps."
Honestly, Orochimaru looked far more like a terminal patient than Jiraiya did. His naturally pale skin had taken on a sickly, translucent hue. His long, dark hair was an absolute rat's nest from days of neglect, and the bruised, heavy bags under his eyes made him look like a vengeful spirit haunting the corridor.
It was painfully obvious that the mad genius had been stubbornly squeezing his own clandestine experiments into whatever microscopic gaps existed in his schedule, sacrificing every second of sleep to do so.
Staring at him, Jiraiya genuinely wondered if he had somehow transferred his stab wound to Orochimaru while he was asleep.
"I might be the one who got stabbed, Orochimaru, but you really need to watch your health," Jiraiya chuckled softly. "If you go wandering around the village at night looking like that, you won't even need a mask to make the academy kids wet their pants in terror."
Orochimaru's eye twitched, feeling a phantom sting at his friend's jab. Was his appearance truly that dreadful right now? Kinoe had explicitly told him that he possessed very handsome features, and that he would be incredibly popular with women if he just stopped looking so perpetually sinister.
'Hmph. Jiraiya is clearly just jealous of my natural aesthetic,'Orochimaru rationalized internally.'I suppose I can be magnanimous and forgive an invalid.'
Reaching into his loose robes, Orochimaru produced three crisp, red apples. He bit into one himself, tossing the other two in smooth arcs toward Jiraiya and Tsunade.
"A new agricultural strain developed by Hiruko," Orochimaru mumbled around a mouthful of fruit. "They possess a remarkably high sugar content. Even the Hokage praised their flavor profile. Eat."
The trio fell into step, walking down the sunlit corridor as they crunched on their apples. Halfway to the exit, Tsunade suddenly planted her feet, stopping in her tracks. She looked Jiraiya dead in the eye.
"Jiraiya. If you are planning something... if you need any help, you tell me. Understood?"
Jiraiya met her gaze, a soft smile touching his lips. "I will."
Orochimaru swallowed his bite of apple, his golden eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "Regarding the blueprints for the mechanical arm project... the theoretical data is nearly perfected. Once I finish coercing Hiruko into acting as my primary lab assistant, we can commence the physical trials."
In truth, with Kinoe's current status, the development of a prosthetic arm was no longer a pressing necessity. But Orochimaru had given Jiraiya his word. And despite his many flaws, the snake never broke a promise to his team.
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